Kenedy’s not the precedent

IT’S hard to sympathise with Kenedy for being sent home from Chelsea’s Asian tour after posting offensive comments about the Chinese people.

Even less with Chelsea, who face a backlash from the most populous country on Earth, which further sets back their then CEO’S 2006 pledge to make them “internationally recognised as the world’s No.1 football club by 2014”.

On the bright side, this editorial in the China Daily could have been worse: “It is regrettable that Kenedy has said such nonsense. He has created an incident that has humiliated China, an incident that so many fans simply cannot tolerate. His absurd comments are not only impolite, but also uneducated.”

Back in 2005, Professor of Racial Harmony Ron Atkinson said this at an after-dinner speech in Sheffield: “The Chinese people have the best contraception in the world – but I can’t understand why there’s so many of them because their women are so ugly.”

The response in the outraged Chinese media was violent, with the country’s veteran striker Hao Haidong telling the China Daily: “What this guy said really shows how unmodern he is. This kind of person should be beaten black and blue and made to thoroughly shut up.”

Had Chelsea’s young winger (above) posted his abuse back then, maybe a new generation would have been able to remember where they were when

Kenedy was shot.

PREMIER LEAGUE supremo Richard Scudamore has defended the knowledge and commitment of foreign fans while out in Hong Kong. Indeed, he believes many paying to watch the Premier League Asian Trophy could go up against traditional fans in a pub quiz...